Snowed In
by TheOneThatStayed
Summary: Parrish tries to amuse Claudia after her flight is cancelled on Christmas.


"No Josh… Yes I know you flew out to see me but come on I can't control the weather…no there is no artifact I can use to fix it… I'll be back before you leave and I'll make sure to smother you with obnoxious Christmas love. Ok? Love you to bro." Claudia slumps back into the pleather of Parrish's office couch.

"Can't anyone in Eureka change the weather?" His eyes stay on his report and her eyes narrow. She sighed loudly and Parrish finally looked at her.

"No, it happened once and the visibility was so bad, that planes almost flew into the Space Needle."

"But it would be the opposite so.." Setting his pen down, he sighs.

"And that situation happened once and 4 farmers in the surrounding area had all their crops killed. Besides I didn't know it would be so terrible staying with me." She swings her legs up so she was lying across the modern setae.

"My brother flew in from Switzerland for Christmas for me, so he kind of totally outranks you. Ugh ok I have to go email Jinks the data I got on his hairbrush artifact, meet you for dinner at Café Diem around 6 ish?" Parrish nods as she shrugs her bag on her shoulder and walks out of the room.

Parrish sat not being able to return to his work. He did feel bad for her, considering she had as much Christmas cheer as Will Ferrell in that elf movie, and she couldn't even do her normal rituals, and it was mutually understood that he did **not** do Christmas, so she was left with nothing on December 24th. Then again it was Christmas Eve and Claudia resembled a kicked puppy when she was disappointed, so Parrish broke one of his own laws. He did something for her, when he knew it wouldn't benefit him. And with that Parrish walked out of his office and down to Vincent's. After pushing open the door he found exactly who he was looking for. Playing a game on his phone sat Zane.

"Do you ever actually do work?" Zane rolled his eyes, but never looked up.

"Parrish, that's not a great way to ask for a favor." Parrish's mouth dropped open.

"How did you even know I would ask for one?" Zane smirked and set his game down.

"Well Donovan 2 isn't with you and you wouldn't come to me unless you needed something work related. And if it was that you'd email me, so it's a personal favor. So what is it?" He glared at the younger man.

"I need you to buy a Christmas tree." Zane burst out laughing.

"You hate Christmas, and I quote "It's an exploitation of an incorrectly timed religious holiday, for the average consumer to run themselves into an immense amount of debt that they'll pay off maybe a month before repeating said cycle" plus you think it's ridiculous to have plants indoor unless they are being used for an experiment. So why would you… Oh it's for Claudia." Parrish takes 5 $20 bills from his wallet and shoves it at him.

"Make sure it's nice and buy lights." Zane shakes his head.

"Not until you admit you love her. This has been going on for months and everyone is sick of you two not saying what needs to be said" Parrish sighs.

"What are you 12? Either do it or don't do it if I need to I'll find someone else." Zane glares but grabs the $100 and shoves it in his pocket.

"I'll drop it off at your house afterwards. And by the way you two are the childish ones." He rolls his eyes and walks away from the table.

Claudia slips through the door of Café Diem at 6:15, and slides in across from Parrish in the booth.

"Do you know what 6 ish means?" She sighs and grabs his drink to take a sip.

"Yes anytime from 5:55- 6:30, so I'm not late." He shakes his head.

"The world must never be dull in your mind." She smiles and answers a text as Vincent walks over.

"Can I get you anything Claudia?" She looks up and attempts to respond but Parrish cuts her off.

"Uh actually we kind of need to leave, but maybe she could get something to go." Vince's eyebrows furrow but walks away mumbling something about vegetable lasagna and arrogant scientists. Claudia purses her lips and crosses her arms.

"What was that about?" Parrish pulls his coat on.

"I uh we are going to do something tonight." Her lips straighten into a line.

"If you just assume something will happen I can assure you…"

"No, just grab the food and let's go." He strolls over to the door, and she murmurs a distracted thanks at Vincent when she picks up the food. Parrish holds the door open for her and they walk to his car.

"So what are we doing?" Parrish smirks and shakes his head.

"It's a surprise you'll see when we get home." That sent thoughts reeling in Claudia's head. What is going on? He can't be proposing, no he'd done something bigger. Break up? Again he wouldn't have put effort into that. So she sat biting her lips the rest of the drive. He pulls into his driveway and hops out of the car. She gets out and follows him through the door, to see… nothing. She glares at him and flips her boot off of her foot.

"What am I supposed to be seeing? There is no… Oh my god is that what I think it is." She walked into the living room, stripping off her outerwear, and stopping at the center of it. There stood a box with a Christmas Tree depicted on the side of it. She turns to stare at her boyfriend who was now smirking.

"You hate Christmas, like as much as you hate Fargo. And that," She gestures to the box, "is the main symbol of Christmas." He nods as he picks up her coat.

"The snow messed up your plans so I thought you might want to do something filled with holiday cheer." He says brushing it off. Claudia's face couldn't control the smile spreading across her face; she turns around and wraps her arm around his neck and smashes her lips against his, before he can pull her in and attempt to forget about the tree, she pulls away and runs to the kitchen.

"Hey Claude what are you doing?" She comes back with a knife.

"We have to open this."

"We?" She turns around and glares at him.

"Yes we. I'm not doing this by myself. The best part about decorating is doing it with people." Parrish rolls his eyes and walks out of the room.

"Dude, seriously?" She yells after him. She gets the box open and pulls out the stand to begin setting it up when Parrish return with 3 plastic boxes. She jumps to help him.

"I was getting ornaments, and garland."

"Why on earth do you have ornaments if you didn't own a tree?" Parrish gives her a withering look before taking the lid off.

"I did have a childhood, Princess. These are from that." She kneeled by the tree box and pulled out a piece of paper.

"Ok so it says start from the turquoise, then it goes grey, yellow, red then purple." She starts pulling out each branch and laying it by the specific color. Parrish came back from the kitchen with 2 plates of lasagna and 2 glasses of wine.

"What are you doing?" She gestures towards the box before grabbing a plate and a glass. He sets his down and walks over inspecting the paper.

"You're setting this up entirely wrong." She sighs and leans back on her hands.

"You don't want to set it up, so you can't criticize it." Ignoring this he starts rearranging the branches in colors, and then by size. By the time Claudia had finished her plate and Parrish's had gone cold he had the tree halfway up, which left Claudia to start sorting through the ornaments. As she unpacked the box she came upon a silver rocket ship with IP engraved on the bottom, mixed in with the normal glass balls, and snowmen. She picked it up and put it on the table. After picking through tissue paper and stockings she found a photo album. Flipping through it Claudia kept seeing pictures of a boy, obviously Parrish, in stuffy outfits, and a frown on his face. In about 60% of them he was with a man with the same sneer in every picture and a woman who slowly stopped appearing as Isaac grew. A few pictures popped up with him at graduations, and the woman appeared again, but with a much taller, and blonder man. The last picture was of the four people, all of them with contempt and anger on their faces.

"Ah so you have seen the highly functional Parrish family." He sits down next to her on the ground.

"I see you've been practicing the glower since age 7." He nods and pulls it from her.

"The guy in the bow tie is my father Jethro Parrish, yes that is his real name, and he's a forensic anthropologist, majored in Ancient Americans. But before that he was a biological analyst for the government." He flips a page. "That is my mother Catherine Downer Parrish Ashmore, she works with mathematical engineer based mostly in aerodynamics. The blonde guy is my stepfather Mathew Ashmore, he's rich because his father and grandfather started many if New York's biggest social areas." She leans her head on his shoulder.

"So can I guess they were pretty busy when you were growing up?" He nods, and the two of them go into a silence while staring at the last page.

"Is that why you hate Christmas?" He turns to look at her before kissing her forehead.

"No I think it's a ridiculous ritual that spoils kids and screws adults." She sighs and puts the book back in the box before getting up. Parrish follows her into the kitchen.

"But I'll admit it's better with you Princess."


End file.
